Wrapped in bloody bandages, seven-year-old Aline Saeed barely survived an Israeli attack on her home in southern Lebanon last week. He was there to bury his father as hopes of reconciliation spread across the region, but a new strike killed his young sister and other relatives.
The strike on the Saeed family home in the village of Srifa took place on Wednesday, the first day of a ceasefire between the US and Iran that many in Lebanon hoped would apply to their country as well. Instead, Israeli attacks killed more than 350 across Lebanon and left Saeed’s family and four other relatives buried.
“They said it was a ceasefire. Like all these people, we went to the village. We went to the coffin to read the prayer and returned home … suddenly we felt like a storm was coming,” said Nasser Saeed, Aline’s 64-year-old grandfather, who also survived.
On Sunday, he joined other relatives in the southern port city of Tire to collect the bodies wrapped in green cloth. One of them, who is a fraction of the size of the others, had his granddaughter Taleen, Aline’s sister.
He was not yet two years old.
With bandages on his head and right arm and scratches on his face, Saeed mourned in silence as the women around him turned their faces to heaven and screamed in pain.
